Google Office Suite

Google has released a Premiere Edition of the popular we based applications costing $50 per account per year. This service which contains the similar features found within a desktop application such as: spreadsheet, word processor, calendar and mail has a storage space of 10GB of email storage. The launch made me begin thinking about how much we already operate in an interconnected world and to speculate as to what the future would be for such a world.

The model for the distributed application harkens back to the days of mainframes and dumb terminals. The mainframe terminal model would force the application to reside within a mainframe, and minimal to no processing would take place on the terminal. This allowed the expensive cost of computing power, application operation to stay within the big iron of the mainframe.

As the cost of the computer hardware began to decline and the PC began to spread to the desktop, so did the applications. The application no longer stayed on the mainframe, but moved to the desktop and the low cost PCs. The mainframe now was slowly moving to the background. When I read about the Google Office Suite the move is back toward dumb terminals and servers that store the applications and data.

I do not think that the Google model is bad. There are some instances were it would be a good thing to have in place: universities, and individuals who do not wish to invest in an expensive software applications. The best way to illustrate the benefits of the Google service would be to look a small to medium sized company.

A company with a few dozen employees may not have the ability to hire a dedicated IT employee. What will usually happen in these companies is that one employee will assume the role of help desk and IT network manager. This is not the ideal solution. Some companies solve their IT needs by hiring a consultant to allow them to have IT services but without the expense of a dedicated employee.

Google’s Office Suite allows companies another solution. They can use the office suite to reduce their IT costs, and since it is a fixed office location the application works perfectly for them. An internet connection would still be required, but with business Internet connectivity available for as low as $50/month this is far cheaper than multiple licensed copies of Office. This is not the ideal solution for a company that has people consistently traveling though. Those workers will still need the ability to travel and work disconnected from the office.